Baillie Gifford International Fund

About this fund

The Baillie Gifford International Fund is aimed at supporting charitable organisations who are working in International Aid Development to deliver their work. 

In 2025/2026,  continuation grants of £5,000 will be awarded for existing climate action projects, previously funded by Baillie Gifford in 2024/25. 

Applications will be made on a solicitation only basis, for an additional year’s funding for the existing climate action project.

Purpose of this fund

Primarily, the fund aims to increase participation with climate action and encourage behavioural change. Funded projects are centred around increasing knowledge, understanding and participation with climate action. The majority are also developing community-led initiatives in relation to climate action that encourage greater community power.

This second year of funding also seeks to support key overarching themes in Baillie Gifford's Philanthropy work - Education, Employability and Essential Needs (Food, water and shelter). Applicants will need to demonstrate how they are achieving outcomes connected to one or more of these key themes in their application for continued funding.

The types of activity the fund supports include projects that:

• Educate and inspire people to engage in climate action
• Build local skills, tools and resources to promote understanding and action
• Create ‘green’ skills and jobs for local people
• Support sustainable farming initiatives or ethical food systems

Funding can be used for:

• staff costs
• volunteer expenses
• general project costs
• engagement activities
• learning and evaluation
• utilities or running costs (no more than 25% of project costs)
• organisational development and management costs

Applicants will also need to demonstrate plans for sustainability beyond the lifetime of the grant.

Additional criteria

The fund prioritises smaller charities with an income of maximum £1M GBP, and those where the grant request is not less than 10% of the total project costs. 

As well as the standard Foundation Scotland eligibility criteria, applicants must be registered charities (i.e. registered with OSCR or the Charities Commission in the UK, or an equivalent overseas which will allow Foundation Scotland to complete the necessary due diligence and eligibility checks). If you are registered outside of the UK please get in touch before applying to discuss whether we can complete our processes with your registration.  

Who can apply?

All applicants must meet Foundation Scotland's Common eligibility criteria, please check this list before starting your application.

What can’t be funded?

Please read through What we can't fund page, these exclusions apply to all Foundation Scotland funds.

Please note that for this fund, we cannot support unregistered organisations. You must be a registered charity to apply, and we must be able to complete our necessary due diligence and eligibility checks. You'll need to submit documents in English for example, and be applying for values in GBP. 

How are decisions made?

Funding is allocated based on decisions by Baillie Gifford’s International Philanthropy group with support from Foundation Scotland.

For more details on our assessment processes please visit How funding decisions are made.